Google recently made a mildly surprising announcement (at least, to me) that the company is shutting down its online collaboration tool, Wave. Google does a lot of cool, neat and worthy stuff obviously, and I think Wave fits into this category. It's just that the actual marketing of it was rather peculiar.
• First, I've seen a number of stories that claim that Google claimed Wave was supposed to be Facebook, Twitter, email, the Internet and Elton John all wrapped into one. With the exception of "Crocodile Rock" being a decent but annoying Wave theme song, Wave should have never been positioned like that.
• It is, first and foremost, an online collaboration tool. Yes, so is Facebook and Twitter, but not really in the same fashion. Wave is perfect for business, whether at a large company, a school or just simple group/freelance work. It can work similar to Facebook, but Wave should not be grouped with other systems that are primarily social networks. One of the enticing things about these apps is finding people who aren't already in your circle of friends. That's beside the point with Wave, as all of the people involved need all of the information conveyed within a single Wave.
• Google has said that some of the functionality will be ported over to Google Docs, which is a great idea. On top of that, the company just plunked down some change for Slide, a company that makes apps for a number of social networking applications. Every company makes a few miscalculations, right? And of course, Google is still standing. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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